In the news

‘Snowplow parents’ overly involved in college students’ lives

Pro­fessor Bar­bara Okun, who teaches coun­seling psy­chology at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity and has a pri­vate prac­tice, says a client recently told her about going on a trip with other mothers.

“She said these other women were on the phone seven or eight times a day with their col­lege kids,” says Okun. “I had to say it’s dis­turbed and dis­turbing, but it’s very common these days.”

Okun and others believe that par­ents often try to keep the bonds tight as much for their own sake as their child’s. “They think they’re doing it for their kids, but they’re doing it for them­selves,” Okun says. “They need to be needed.”

More “In the news” Media Coverage

“This is an exciting and unex­pected dis­covery that ques­tions the stan­dard par­a­digm in the field,” Kim Lewis, director of the Antimi­cro­bial Dis­covery Center at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity not involved with the […]

Last year, for instance, the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion reported that it took twice as long to fill sci­ence, tech­nology, engi­neering, and math, or STEM, jobs as non-​​​​STEM posts. Mean­while, aca­d­e­mics like […]

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